Precious Metals Stored Beneath the World Trade Center

One of the less noted of the possible motives for the attack
was the creation of diversion in order to steal
hundreds of millions of dollars worth of precious metals.

By September of 2003, 9-11 Research had published the following
story about the discrepancy between the value of precious metals reportedly
stored in the Comex vaults beneath WTC 4 and the value reportedly
recovered in late 2001 following the attack.
(The September, 2003 version of the page is archived on
archive.org.)

e x c e r p t

title:Missing Gold

authors:Jim Hoffman

Missing Gold

A King's Ransom in Precious Metals Seems to have Disappeared

The basement of
4 World Trade Center
housed vaults used to store gold and silver bullion.
Published articles about precious metals recovered
from the World Trade Center ruins in the aftermath of the attack
mention less than $300 million worth of gold.
All such reports appear to refer
to a removal operation conducted in late October of 2001.
On Nov. 1, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani announced that
"more than $230 million" worth of gold and silver bars
that had been stored in a bomb-proof vault had been recovered.
A New York Times article contained:
2

Two Brinks trucks were at ground zero on Wednesday to start hauling away
the $200 million in gold and silver that the Bank of Nova Scotia had stored
in a vault under the trade center ... A team of 30 firefighters and police
officers are helping to move the metals, a task that can be measured
practically down to the flake but that has been rounded off at
379,036 ounces of gold and 29,942,619 ounces of silver ..

Another article gave a figure of $650 million to the value of
gold in the 4 WTC vault.

Unknown to most people at the time, $650 million in gold and silver
was being kept in a special vault four floors beneath Four
World Trade Center. The gold and silver were recently recovered.

An article in the TimesOnline
gives the following rundown of precious
metals that were being stored in WTC vaults belonging to Comex.
4

Comex clients - 800,000 ounces of gold with a value of about $220 million

Comex clients - 102 million ounces of silver, worth $430 million

Bank of Nova Scotia - $200 million of gold

The TimesOnline article is not clear as to whether
the $200 million in gold reported by the Bank of Nova Scotia
was part of the $220 million in gold held by Comex for clients.
If so, the total is $750 million; otherwise $950 million.

There appear to be no reports of precious metals discovered between
November of 2001 and the completion of excavation several months later.
It would seem that at least the better part of a billion dollars
worth of precious metals went missing.
It is not plausible that whatever destroyed the towers vaporized
gold and silver,
which are heavy malleable metals
that are extremely unlikely to participate in chemical reactions
with other materials.

The authors of the book
9/11 Revealed
were apparently so impressed with the story that they paid 9-11 Research
the ultimate compliment -- they plagiarised the story.
The following passage from the 9-11 Research critique of the book
explains how the report was lifted by 9/11 Revealed without credit:

Gold Heist Story Heist

One of the more egregious examples of the book's appropriation
without credit of 911Research's reporting
is its paragraph covering the discrepancy between
the value of precious metals reportedly stored
under the World Trade Center
and the value reported recovered after the attack.

9/11 Revealed copies this image, along with the
gist of 911Research's original reporting,
without crediting 911Research.

Some $230 million worth of gold was discovered in a lorry
in a tunnel under the Center in November 2001.
21
We have seen no reports of other caches being found.
However, Comex was reported to have at least $950 million
worth of gold stored in its vault under the Center,
and the fate of that haul remains unknown.
22
[page 107]

Compare this excerpt to the [
archived excerpt],
which has existed in its current form on 911Research since
late 2003.
The two references cited by
9/11 Revealed
for this story are References 1 and 4 from our page.
The $950 million figure comes from 911Research, not from
reference 22.